“You are my sun,” my friend tells me in halting French over coffee. She’s going through a rough time. We’re having coffee, and I’m listening – just someone she can say all the things she needs to say out loud to, in a language that doesn’t belong to either of us but the only one we have in common to form the vocabulary of our friendship.
I think of other times I’ve heard this throughout my life. My father singing “You are My Sunshine” at bedtime. An old friend exclaiming, “The sunshine is back!” when I returned home a long trip. Messages from another, for years now, calling me “moje sonce.” And when I reply, it has to be “Hello, moja zvezdica!” My star.
That’s what they all are to me: suns of other galaxies, the stars by which I stumble my way through life, always orienting me to my true north, always burning bright to keep me warm. So that no matter how dark it gets, I’m never truly lost.
Love,
February